Robot Learning Engineer

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Employment Type: FullTime

About the Role

An early-stage industrial robotics startup in Munich is looking for a Robot Learning Engineer to join a small, ambitious team working at the frontier of intelligent automation. This is an entry-level / new-grad research role where you'll apply state-of-the-art machine learning — perception, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, and sim-to-real transfer — directly to a real industrial robotic work cell handling some of the hardest manual tasks in manufacturing: surface finishing, welding, and coating. You'll have the rare opportunity to see your ML work run on physical factory hardware from day one.

What You'll Do

• Research and evaluate ML models for robot perception and task understanding

• Apply computer vision and deep learning to multi-modal sensor data (cameras, force/torque sensors, depth)

• Experiment with reinforcement learning and imitation learning for robot control

• Integrate AI models into the ROS 2 robotics stack

• Run rigorous experiments and iterate rapidly on results

• Bridge the gap between research prototypes and real-world factory deployment

What We're Looking For

Required:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Robotics, Computer Science, AI, or a closely related field

• 0–3 years of hands-on experience in robotics, computer vision, or AI research

• Proficiency in Python and at least one deep learning framework (PyTorch or TensorFlow)

• Experience with ROS 2

• Experience with computer vision and sensor data processing for robotics applications

• Practical knowledge of reinforcement learning and/or imitation learning for robot control

• Ability to collaborate across research and real-world deployment in a robotics context

• Legal right to work in Germany — visa sponsorship is not available

• Based in Munich or willing to relocate (role is fully on-site)

Nice to Have:

• Experience with sim-to-real tools such as Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, or PyBullet

• Strong fundamentals demonstrated through research publications, a thesis, internships, or open-source contributions in robotics or AI

• Familiarity with 3D perception, point clouds, or depth estimation

Compensation & Benefits

• Equity participation offered

• Cash compensation to be discussed directly — competitive for an early-stage startup

Location

On-site in Munich, Germany. Relocation expected. No remote or hybrid arrangements available for this role.